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All Blacks' mistakes the Wallabies must fix to beat the Springboks
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There is not one shred of doubt that the Springboks are the best in the world currently.
There may have been a morsel of doubt ahead of the Greatest Rivalry Tour, but it is now certain, and that puts the seventh-ranked Wallabies in a precarious position as they look ahead to Sunday in Perth.
The silver lining for the Wallabies is that the Springboks have rotated their squad, meaning they won’t be facing the world champions at full strength; however, this just means the Wallabies are a hope in the contest.
What the All Blacks managed to achieve on foreign soil amid very hostile and passionate Springbok crowds during the RGR tour is rather remarkable, and while they played some great rugby, the Springboks outplayed them and out-strategized them at almost every turn throughout the series.
While the Wallabies cannot hope to magically overturn the fact that they are seventh and the All Blacks second in the world, the Wallabies have means to learn a lot from the All Blacks’ mistakes and the opportunities they created.
Likewise, there is now a lot of footage of how the Springboks play when things get tough, and while they may deviate from that blueprint to try out some exciting new plays, there remains value in assessing their patterns.
In short, the Wallabies have the staff, athletes, and preparation to trouble the Boks; how they execute and how hard they are willing to work over 80 minutes in Perth will determine whether they are in the contest.
The aerial game is often spoken about as being a key pillar of the Springboks’ DNA, and there is nothing to suggest that will change at Optus Stadium.
In this first clip, the Springboks show their kick return policy, with Sacha Feinberg-Mngomenzulu going up for it and Mannie Libbok doing a stellar job at cleaning up the spilled ball.
If you look at the All Blacks’ chase line and where the ball lands, it’s not a great kick from halfback Cam Roigard, because it lands on the 15m and it hasn’t boxed the Boks in enough on the edge, giving Libbok acres of space to move.
It also shows that the All Blacks only have five players covering roughly 55m of space on their left-hand side.
Springbok prop Ox Nche steps in at halfback and distributes quickly to the open side, and fleet-footed winger Kurt-Lee Arendse makes his way over the gainline.
During these two phases, the All Blacks have conceded considerable meterage and have failed to fold to that left-hand side, with only two of the original five players now covering more than 20 metres of space.
The best centre pairing in the world of Damien De Allende and Jesse Kriel, with perhaps the best player in the world, Pieter-Steph du Toit, against one All Black winger, Leroy Carter.
The trio makes 33 metres into the All Blacks’ 22m zone without having to do anything fancy, just hands and strong carry lines.
The Boks go from width to width with captain Siya Kolisi charging through the All Blacks on the other side of the field; only an Eben Etzebeth fumble at the ruck shuts the attack down.
Having PSTD in the wide channels is nothing new, and shifting the ball into the wider channels where he or a similar profile of player is standing is textbook Boks strategy.
The tactic guarantees two things: either a dominant carry or a dominant clean; either way, it means the Boks get that quick ball to go to width to width on a retreating defence.
The Wallabies cannot afford to kick with such a poor chase line, nor can they fail to fold when they have more than a phase to realign, because despite what some will have you believe, the Boks can strike from anywhere.
Here we see a much more familiar picture with the Boks going to the air through a well-weighted and delayed box kick from halfback, Cobus Reinach.
What many focus on incorrectly in these situations is purely the part when players contest for the ball in the air, but how teams structure themselves around the catching players is what counts.
Because the kick is shallow, the player deep left in the All Blacks’ pendulum, Ruben Love, is too far away to come and assist, and this leaves centre Jordie Barrett and winger Will Jordan to compete whilst they are retreating without a genuine batting-back option.
Meanwhile, with all the momentum going forward, Etzebeth and Kolisi are close by, ready to pounce on the ball alongside the competing Ethan Hooker.
Yes, Kolisi is a brilliant, passionate, bright leader, but people often overlook how dominant he is in the carry, and like the first clip, he shows his wares once again, getting almost 10 post-contact metres with his leg drive.
Once again, a forward in Etzebeth plays halfback with Reinach sealing the ruck, and the Springboks once again go to width.
All Blacks outside centre Quinn Tupaea almost gets his man De Allende, but the veteran Bok just skipps out of his tackle, and once again, Carter is caught in 30m of space against four of the Springboks’ deadliest ball runners.
Once again, PSTD is out there, and he this time secures a quick ruck that sees the Springboks spread it into centre field before Feinberg-Mngomezulu pins the All Blacks back deep into the left-hand corner.
Again, two pivotal things to note: the Boks want to go width to width because that achieves mismatches in attackers and defenders because that’s how they have constructed it.
This shows the Wallabies that they cannot afford to switch off even for a second when scanning the Springboks’ attack and looking to match numbers.
Secondly, how hard the Boks work to get into shape is what made them so deadly in these parts of the game, which many say are ‘boring kicking battles’.
A big piece of proof for this is how hard Ruan Nortje in the blue boots works to get to centre field after being the last man in the ruck when Reinach initially hoists the boxkick.
You can actively see how hard he is thrashing his limbs to try to get out to centre field while his All Blacks opponents are all looking inwards towards where the ball is landing.
Small difference in attention and awareness, big payday, as Nortje is the man who runs the downline that holds Asafo Aumua and Luke Jacobsen in place, who then disconnect from Tupaea to give the Boks the linebreak on the edge.
The Wallabies cannot be so static in their defensive line and must swim through the defence better than the All Blacks do here, something Wallabies defence coach Scott McLeod will have noticed.
Now, while the Boks were great at playing to their structure and getting great pay out of it, the Wallabies must observe clips like this one above and see the opportunities presented.
The bird’s-eye view from the spider cam shows the Springboks’ defensive movement very clearly.
Once that lineout goes, Reinach, the halfback, and his tight forwards are the last Bok defenders to push across and end up well in field of the 15m channel.
Meanwhile, explosive backrower Peter Lakai goes straight to the sideline and, at the point the camera cuts to a different angle, he is more than 12 metres wide of the last Bok defender, tighthead prop Nche.
However, the All Blacks go openside and throw the ball into touch, but the bounce-back option was clearly on.
Two important things can be derived from this clip and will be made clearer in the subsequent clip.
First, by going the same way, the All Blacks are trying to go wide with backs on backs where there are no mismatches, and plenty of quick players to cut down space and time or to shovel them to the sideline as they do.
Secondly, if all the Bok backs are on the right side, run your more mobile forwards in pods around the props to get slow/weak shoulders and force the defence to recalibrate in midfield.
The Wallabies cannot get sucked into the fool’s gold trap that the Springboks managed to sell to the All Blacks on the edges time and time again throughout the series.
The same strategy on bodies in motion, ball movement, and finding mismatches applies off scrums in the 15m channels, as observed here.
The All Blacks hit middle and then punch back blind and find that same gap for Lakai to burst into.
Why this works in a tighter space and with less time is because you have that mismatch of prop Nche having to make the rush and it not being a back.
Where Lakai makes his mistake, and the Wallabies must improve on these types of opportunities, is that Lakai runs into Malcom Marx, where he appears to have the gas to clatter into Hooker or Reinach, two considerably smaller men.
Lakai’s supporting All Blacks are overall too slow to assist in making the most of this opportunity, and Reinach manages to spoil the party before they even arrive.
The crucial lesson for the Wallabies to take away from what Jordan does next is that the Boks’ backs are on the edges, but in midfield, it is a patchy, checkerboard-style setup with various forwards doing their best to chase with no connection.
The Boks bank on their edge players presenting a worrying enough picture that the All Blacks just kick it out, but the belly of the Boks is vulnerable here, and Jordan exposes that, and so should the Wallabies.
The final clip here picks up on one of the key red threads throughout this analysis, and that is the importance for the Wallabies to flood contact zones.
They must be ready to play on top of the Boks should they manage any half-breaks or dominant carries.
This is not about throwing offloads willy-nilly, but rather about acknowledging that the Springboks defensive system is built around pushing sides wider and then having the inbuilt scramble to deal with it.
It relies on their close-in tacklers being big enough, strong enough, connected enough to make a dominant spot tackle.
If, like in this example, the tackles close to the ruck at some point falter on this, then the safety mechanisms of the broader system are destabilised, and that’s when going wide can be an option.
Although it is very messy and a bit helter-skelter, the Roigard ball to Tupou Vaii does the required damage in close to cause that instability, even though the ball from that ruck is so slow.
For three phases before Jacobsen gets the linebreak out wide, the All Blacks concede metres and go nowhere; this is something the Wallabies must look to improve on with their podwork and latch-clean.
Nevertheless, the Roigard-Vaii axis allowed the All Blacks to go wide because now they had tight forwards defending next to backrowers and wingers, presenting too much of a disparity in foot speed to shut Jacobsen down before he trucks it deep into the Boks’ 22m.
Sam Darry makes his post-contact meterage, something which he generally struggled with on the tour, close to the ruck and beats the rush on the outside.
Love makes the same headway when he heads back into that seam close to the ruck.
Despite the fact that Feinberg-Mngomezulu eventually shut down the attack illegally with a slap down, there is a way the Wallabies can improve on this shape and attack.
The All Blacks make the mistake of trying to attack space when they are not set and running their forwards against a set Boks backline defence; the speed of the defenders makes this a 50/50 raid at best. The All Blacks are just fortunate that Ardie Savea is such a gun, and he turns it for them.
Ironically, the South African commentator had just said, “stayed patient in this attack set have New Zealand,” just before they get over eager and go wide to Savea.
Tyrell Lomax in the pod should have tipped to Vaii, who was about to crash into halfback Reinach, and that would’ve given the All Blacks the right momentum and fast ball in centre field to send Savea and Lakai at Hooker and SFM.
The Wallabies must take these lessons from the GRT into the game in Perth at the weekend.
Their forward-dominant try record in 2026 shows positive signs in their patience and faith in their pack.
Their backs cannot coast on the coattails of their front eight; they must provide the punch and zip when transitions are required in attack and defence.
Likewise, they must be the source of kick chase and kick return that keep the Boks on their toes when hoisting their aerial bombardments.
Whoever starts at no.10 for the Wallabies is irrelevant; all they need to do is kick the Wallabies into the Boks’ half and play off the back of their no.9 and their packs’ hard graft.
The Wallabies will only have a chance if they muscle up physically and are able to learn the tactical lessons from the Greatest Rivalry Tour.
Wallabies coach Les Kiss must get his selections right to evenly and adequately distribute his powerful ball carriers in his pack, and whoever he selects in the backline must add more go-forward than they have previously.
The Wallabies are in this contest, but there are a lot of ifs, buts, and maybes before they can be considered a genuine shot at upsetting the world champions in Perth.
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